Athanasia
by Amanda Swiftgold
Summary: A journal written by an unlikely source details past pain and future... romance, perhaps? It's not quite as simple as that... Complete.
1. Entry One

"Athanasia" Entry One

Hi everyone. First off, spoilers for the game, so ya. Anyway, this is a diary-like story so the 'entries' may be a little short. It leads into an Amarant-Freya thing so if you don't like that pairing you may not like this. I wrote it in Word with a parchment background and handwriting font, so it just looks weird here, heh. That's why there's strikeouts and underlines, trying to emulate real paper-writing. Oh, and it's been a long time since I played the game, so please forgive any out-of-characterness I may have included. ^_^ Language and sexual innuendo and general darkness has garnered this an R.  
It starts after the final battle but before the end of the game, so that is why everyone is thinking Zidane is dead.  
Athanasia - the quality of being deathless; immortality. 

"Athanasia"  
By Amanda Swiftgold 

Entry One 

--Uh damn. Look at all this blank space here. I don't even know what I'm writing. I have absolutely nothing to say, but on the other hand I also have absolutely nothing to do. So I figure I'll give this a shot. Maybe later on I can put this book in a chest and hide it somewhere for some adventurer to find and keep, as if my damn journal will help him in his quest somehow.   
The thought of that kind of amuses me. Keep this book, kiddo. Find all the others and bring 'em to the lady in Lindblum who will pay you a crapload of gil for 'em. Right. Where exactly is this lady, you ask, even though it's been a hundred years since I hid this? Well, see here, you have to find a bunch of clues   
Ah, what a bunch of bullshit. I'm just going to write what I feel like whenever. And if anyone I know reads this then I'll kill 'em. (This includes you, Lani, don't think it doesn't.) I could care less who gets this after I'm dead. Use it for kindling or toilet paper, whatever.   
Anyway, this is my book. Who am I? I guess I'm kind of famous, in a way, having helped save Gaia and all. Not like Zidane or the queen ever got to be, though. I must have found fifty paperbacks novelizing their meeting and adventures and 'doomed love' already.   
I don't mind not getting the attention. It's much better this way. I get all the benefits of fame, like having most of those damn bounty hunters stop getting after me, but I'm not important enough that people follow me around asking for my autograph, like they do to some of the others if the mood strikes them. That might also be because I don't exactly look approachable   
You know, this is all just stupid. Why am I even writing in this? Maybe I will just hide this in a cave for some adventurer. I guess that's who I'm writing to here, because I have to be writing to someone. I already know all this for my own self, so I don't need to keep it for me.   
Well, if you're still reading, whoever you are, don't expect anything. At all.   
Uh so a while back Zidane gave me this book he found. It's got nothing in it so he said I might like to have it to write things down in. Whatever. I won't ever know now what he expected from me, but of course I never did quite understand that. Zidane is was a mystery to me, why he thought the way he did and everything else besides. I tried, very hard, to understand why he gave his life to try and save Kuja. I suppose it's the same reason he wouldn't kill me after defeating me.   
I don't want to believe he's just gone, after everything. He always seemed to have all the answers.   
Well, the little shit didn't think about how I was supposed to write in this thing, did he? Regular pens are too small for my hands so I had to swallow my pride, get a griffin quill, and get Dr. Tot to make me one I can hold better. It works pretty good and the end is whittled down small so I don't take up half a page with a few words.   
If you're at all familiar with the people I've mentioned you probably know who I am. I bet you're wondering now when someone like me ever learned to write at all. (And learned to use 'big words', too. Heh.) Well, tough. I don't feel like explaining all that right now. I'm not what a lot of people think I am, though maybe I used to be, once.   
This is getting ahead of things. I guess if I'm going to sit here and talk about myself on paper I may as well start at the beginning. I don't know how old I am exactly but I figure I was born somewhere between twenty and thirty years ago. So that is when it starts.   
My beginning was just like everyone else's in the world, except the Genomes and the Black Mages if you want to be technical about it. I don't exactly know who my parents were but I do know, from what I was told and figured for myself, what happened between them.   
I'm not human, I know that much. I mean, all you have to do is look at me to tell. Maybe there's part of me that is, somewhere. My mother was probably the same race as old Queen Brahne used to be. Light blue-skinned, human-like, I guess it is, and treated the same, but not quite the real thing. My fath-*   
Ah, hell, I'm just going to be blunt about it. No use dancing around the issue. My father is some mountain creature who attacked and raped my mother while she was traveling alone to Treno. He was probably some kind of humanoid type, at least something close enough. I don't know really, I've never met him. Hell, me or Zidane or someone with us probably killed him along the way somewhere and I never knew it. No loss there. What would you say in a situation like that anyhow?   
Besides being assaulted, which started me, she got to Treno okay and stayed there after she found out what she'd been cursed with, just waiting for me to be born. I guess they thought I was going to be twins because I was so big and they didn't find out the truth until it was too late. I was born in a river of my mother's blood and killed her with my very birth. I've had those kind of stains on my hands ever since the moment I took breath so I suppose it was just an omen of things to come.   
I don't re   
Damn it, that's enough of this. I'm through with this shit. 


	2. Entry Two

"Athanasia" Entry Two

Entry Two 

-- Well, I told myself I wasn't going to mess with this stupid book anymore, but before I knew it I had it in my hands again. It's still been quite a few months, maybe even a year or more since I first opened it, though. I'm not even sure how it got in my pack, but since it's here  
Alexandria's finally been rebuilt and Tantalus came to perform a play in honor of the rededication or whatever you want to call it. We were all invited, of course, and so I went. Lani sort of followed me there too, though I don't know why she seems to insist on tagging along with me nowadays. Maybe it's her old bounty hunter instinct, that's all I can think of. She has changed some though since she was saved by Eiko's moogles and was living in Madain Sari. She's still kind of annoying but I've gotten too used to having people around all the time so I just let her be.  
I try not to show it but that bastard Zidane's really messed me up. I don't know if I like it but I guess I owe it to him that I've mellowed out a little, I guess it is. I still won't buy into that whole love-and-togetherness shit but there is truth in his saying that people need each other.   
Oh, notice I say 'is'? He just kind of came back today, showing up in the middle of the play and making Dagger's dreams come true I guess. I couldn't help but smile at them, clapping along with everyone else. (Eh, not like anyone noticed me with the 'reunion of the century' happening right there.) Stupid kid must be blessed with something that keeps him alive. I won't lie, it feels right now that he's back. Zidane was the central part that held everyone together.  
So now we're all here in the castle, kinda staying for a while since they're so happy now. Eiko has sort of been adopted by Cid and Hilda so that's that, and Steiner has Beatrix and his queen to protect. Vivi has his 'kids', or we have him through them. I'm not too sure what to think about that even now.  
Quina has the kitchen and Freya has Burmecia to rebuild and someone for her too, I guess someone she found again after a while. I don't really know or care about the whole story, though I hear something about memory loss and that sounds a little odd to me well, it's none of my business. Anyway, she's leaving to go back to Fratley or Flatley or whoever he is in the morning.  
Me, I guess I'm okay too. It's enough to just watch everything like that, it always has been. But maybe I'm lying. I don't know. Zidane would point me to Lani, sure, but I don't think she even knows what to feel about me, and if she doesn't I sure as hell am not going to push. I learned my lesson about that and that is not something I'm going to talk about now, or ever. 


	3. Entry Three

"Athanasia" Entry Three

Entry Three 

--I'm writing in this thing again even though I seem to stop abruptly all the time. Well, you know what, I'm just going to write what I happen to write and I'm not going to lie about anything, or cross it out, or take it back. If I don't want it to be said, well, I just won't say it to begin with. I guess that will work.  
Maybe Zidane knew what he was talking about when he gave this to me because the more I bother with it the more I seem to like it. And maybe I want my memories to go on too. Maybe that's all the immortality you can ask for, not like I want to live forever in reality. As long as this paper lasts who I was will last too.  
Ugh, that's too much philosophy. Screw it. So what do I say now? 'Today I did nothing in particular, just like every other day'. Yeah, right.  
It's really raining hard out there tonight. I haven't seen rain like this in Alexandria for a very long time. I'm supposed to leave tomorrow, dunno where I'm going to, but if the roads are all washed out I'll have to stay here some more  
Well Lani just left to go back to her inn. She was sitting around in the castle sitting place with me for a while but it's getting kind of late, and I can't sleep anyhow, reason for me writing this now. So she left. Now that I think about it, she really has changed a lot. I've heard almost dying can do that to you and I guess it's true. But I understood her a lot more back when she was all full of shit and fire and all that. Nowadays she seems to have been taking lessons from Dagger or something. I'm not even going to try to figure why. Just proves to me that I was right to haven't have not ever care about that bef *** 

--- 

I suppose I should explain why that page up there is smeared and there's ink all over it? Right. Guess I can write again now that Freya's sleeping. Oh, I have to explain why she's here too, eh? And sleeping, nonetheless. Well, I will, since it explains why I just made a mess of this page.  
So I was just sitting here writing away like a good little scholar (sure) and suddenly the door closes, makes my hand jump, okay, not a big deal. And then I hear this kind of scream, and when I turn to look there's Freya standing in the room all dripping wet and looking like hell, didn't expect me to be in here. So I had to slam the book closed so she wouldn't see, and there's your explanation of that.  
The thing is, Freya did go back to Burmecia, but when she got there something bad happened between her and that guy, Fratley whoever. She wouldn't really say what happened exactly but I figure they had some argument or something and she wouldn't stay in Burmecia anymore and came back here to see Dagger. Dagger's not up though so she came in here 'cause the fire's still going.  
If you ask me, she loves her memory of Fratley better than the guy he's turned into after getting amnesia, but no one asked me. And no, I wasn't callous enough to tell her that, though I wanted to. At first I wanted her to just leave me alone I mean, when she got over her surprise of seeing me she first looked like she wanted to leave again anyway, but I guess I'm her friend and she would probably have spilled it all to old Brahne at that point, she felt that bad.   
She said she was cold and asked to sit down, and I told her to get a blanket then, but she said something kind of odd, something like her soul was cold and only someone else could warm it up. I still didn't want to let her I mean, I haven't what is she coming to me for anyway? The day I become someone's counselor is the day Quina goes on a diet. But she had this hollow hurt look in her eyes and so I let her sit next to me and just listened while she went on about this guy and how much she loves him but that he doesn't really seem to love her back. Like he's just with her because he was before and he has some kind of obligation to love her again even though he doesn't remember her. I told her to just forget him but she didn't say anything to that. Ah, hell. Dagger can help her better in the morning.  
Eventually when she got warmer she started dozing off, on my shoulder of all places. So now she's making my arm fall asleep. I'm too nice for my own good nowadays, really. I just noticed how soft her hair is now that it's dry. I tried to start writing again before but she asked what I was writing and I couldn't show her of course. Much too personal to show her even though a complete stranger is probably reading it now. That's just how it is.  
This is too weird. I mean, I remember how I met her, with that tough look in her eyes and how we nearly started fighting a moment later, and if you'd told me then I'd be sitting here with her sleeping on my damn shoulder I'd have laughed at your ass and then smacked you one. But she's here anyway and I guess it didn't hurt me to help her out. Damn you, Zidane, for making me think this way. Now I want to get to bed too but what, do I just leave her here? Bring her to her room and have the guards on the way whisper and cackle like fuckin' hens?   
I never thought about this before. 


	4. Entry Four

"Athanasia" Entry Four

Entry Four 

--The rain stopped, finally. It's muddy as hell out now though, and as we were crossing the courtyard to go to the dining room for lunch (me, Freya, Eiko and Steiner clanking along behind) I guess I was still feeling weird from last night 'cause I just went and picked up Eiko and Freya too and crossed the mud with them. Eiko made some kind of annoying noise and said she didn't think I had it in me, so I almost dropped her in the mud but didn't. Freya was blushing some, you wouldn't think you could see it on her face, her being a demi-human and all, but you can, and she said she could have jumped it just fine but thank you anyway. Even though she wasn't really impressed I kind of liked doing it. See what all that last night did to me? Shit.  
Oh, in case you were wondering, I ended up sleeping as best I could sitting there on the couch with her using me for her damn pillow. I was expecting her to say something about it, but she was gone after I managed to fall asleep one time and when we met up again she acted like nothing happened and she'd been here the whole time and hadn't just come back. It pisses me off a little but at the same time I'm glad she's not suddenly acting like I'm her best girlfriend.  
For some reason today I remembered the time when we were trying to get into Terra and had to fight at all the shrines. I resented Zidane sticking me with Freya, but who else would he have sent with me? Well, I guess Freya telling me her stuff last night reminded me of this, now that I remember it. When Zidane came back for me in Ipsen's Castle I sort of had an eye-opener and I kind of told her about it when the Fire Shrine guardian popped up. I wasn't planning to tell her that I had been wrong about myself and everything all these years, but I'm sure she wasn't planning on telling me about that ass Fratley last night either.  
I think after that she really did become my friend. I never really knew Vivi too well and Eiko goes out of her way to piss me off sometimes. Steiner and Dagger I still don't know too well either, and Quina's Quina. If I was meant to know someone and Zidane had everyone else to deal with because he's our connection then maybe it's natural for Freya and I ah, hell, I don't know what I'm saying. I'm just rambling about nothing. But if she happened to change her opinion of me when we fought at the shrine, I think I started to then too. After the fight with the guardian we were pretty torn up but she didn't act like it even bothered her, even when she was bleeding all over the place. I couldn't help but notice that, how strong she is on the battlefield and then her eyes last night after coming all this way  
I really need to shut up now. I'm making a fool out of myself here and the more I write the dumber it gets. She's gonna have to leave again sometime and then I'll get back to normal. 


	5. Entry Five

"Athanasia" Entry Five

Entry Five 

-- I have to get out of Alexandria. There's nothing to do here and I'm bored blind. I don't even know why I'm still hanging around here. Eiko's gone back to Lindblum and Quina went away too. Everyone else lives here but Freya but she hasn't gone though. I should be leaving too but I haven't yet.   
I even had a chance to go when Lani left. She practically begged me to go with her like we were before Zidane came back, and I almost said sure but it came out no. She yelled something at me I don't get, more like her old self then, and if I'd had a chance I really would have gone along with her then, maybe gone out to fight something if she was going to stay that way. But I'm not going to run after her now so I guess we meet when we meet again.  
My whole point in starting with this was to tell about myself so I should go on with that and not mess with the stupid daily shit that's been going on. You remember I grew up in Treno, right? Well, like I told Zidane when he was trying to come to terms with his own origin (I don't think it really did anything for him but he did ask) my first memory is the face of a guy I had to fight.   
What happened was someone along the line decided not to kill me after my mother died, and for some reason I ended up belonging to a noble named Caleb Coral. At the time of my memory I was like five years old but I was strong even then and big for my age of course. He (Caleb) used to take me places with him, made me wear this collar and that had a chain on it, like I was his fucking dog. This was like twenty years ago but even today the nobles there get to do whatever the hell they want. So I was his little curiosity he paraded around and at that time I wasn't aware of myself. It's kind of hard to explain it, but I didn't know that I wasn't his animal. That's the best I can describe it.  
Some guy who thought he was real tough I guess was walkin' around talking a big show, and Caleb went and bet with him that I could take him out, even just being a kid. I remember this guy's face, all broad and sweaty, little mustache hanging down, a big nervous grin as I just stared at him, wondering what was going on I guess. I didn't get that they wanted me to fight him... I don't think I got much of anything.   
He started in hitting me, laughing at this stupid bet Caleb had made, and he made me bleed. Looking at my own blood that I wiped from my mouth, I just got so angry I killed that man with my hands and my teeth, just kept hitting and hitting and biting and tearing until he stopped screaming, tasting all this blood like metal on my tongue. They had to hit me with a cane to knock me out and stop me from ripping his corpse apart. That's my second memory, one I never told Zidane. I did tell someone else though, when I could. He was important to me and the reason I can actually write this now, but he comes in later.  
Back then I really wasn't more than an animal, just a screwy kid who was too strong and with bright red hair like no one had seen. That's what most of them commented on first, and then the fact I was just five, with Caleb all proud to own something so damn weird.   
I guess now it's easy to tell why I hate Treno so much. It's changed some since I lived there but the nobles still run the show. It's better than it was but there used to be certain parts of town where regular people had to live, and they put up these huge grates to keep them out of the other areas. I remember going with Caleb to the market square one time, all the nobles got to buy things first before they let the others get what was left, and there were all these people pushing and climbing on the gates, just looking at the food and things they couldn't get to yet. Even before I was aware of myself I knew they were like me. They tore down the walls and gates a few years later but it didn't make much difference. The darkness hides just about anything that people can do to each other, and the nights in Treno are long. I hate the place, but I keep going back there over and over again at least now I don't have to let them walk all over me anymore.   
More rambling. I think that's more than you wanted to know, and likely more than I wanted to tell, so I'll stop here for now. 


	6. Entry Six

"Athanasia" Entry Six

Entry Six 

-- I'm gonna make this short but I feel like I have to write it down. If I'd known that I'd be a slave to this stupid book I'd have tossed it in the fire straight off.  
Anyhow, I had this dream just now, and I've had it before, I know. When I went to Oeilvert with Zidane, Eiko, and Steiner, there were these strange stone monoliths dotted about the place, they all had like memorial words carved on them, and when we got too close to one of these epigraphs they'd open, and out would pop the image of a person. I hated those things and even though it's been so long I just dreamed about them. You can't use magic in Oeilvert but I think Zidane brought Eiko along anyway to protect her, us not knowing that the others would escape their cells and all.  
Even though Eiko annoys me, I know she's just a kid and she can't help it and I wouldn't wish this on her well, let me explain. Sometimes the images of the ones we left in Kuja's place came out of the epigraph, and those were hard enough to fight, but when one of us four came out it was a lot worse. See, when one of our doubles came out they would insist they were the real one and throw up a death mirror in front of you, knocking you out right away. I was on the receiving end of one of those once but that when it happened wasn't what makes me have nightmares about it.  
So Eiko was with us, and when her double came out and killed her I made the mistake of reviving her. We hadn't been fighting these things for too long and she was the first one of our group to come out of the accursed things. We were all trying to tear up the epigraph so it wouldn't pop out any more people, before we could get up the nerve to kill the Eiko-double, but even when it was destroyed she didn't go away. So I brought her back, not knowing that the damn double would just kill her again, and she was only six at the time I can still hear the voice of the double saying 'Who are you?' all little and innocent and then killing Eiko again before she barely had a chance to get to her feet.  
Who are you imagine hearing that from someone who looks like you I know Eiko has nightmares about it too sometimes. Maybe she really was too young to fight with us, but she was strong, maybe the strongest of all of us if you take that fact into account. I just can't get that echoey, hollow voice out of my head. Maybe getting this down will make it go away. It's still late (you can tell, I made no sense) and I want to go back to sleep. 


	7. Entry Seven

"Athanasia" Entry Seven

Entry Seven 

-- I think this is going to be one of those times when I'm actually writing something in order to try and work it out and understand it, cause I sure as hell don't get it right now. I'm just very confused, and I'm trying not to destroy anything. Don't be surprised if there are pages ripped though. I just wanna hurt something  
She drives me insane, she makes me furious, but I didn't want her to stop, I couldn't believe it and I just didn't want it to stop. I don't even remember how it started well, maybe. I think it started when she asked why I have my hair over my eyes the way it is. Everyone else had got baskets of food from the kitchen and gone to eat outside and I thought she'd gone with them but she hadn't, there she was in just this white blouse and those pants she wears and there she was, standing there in the hall as I passed and she asked about my hair. What the hell? I don't understa-*  
I'm starting over, take a breath, that's it all right. I'm acting like an idiot, on paper even. So Freya was in the hall just leaning there on the wall like I do, and she made this remark about my hair covering my eyes, which I do because they just make me look like even more of a freak, since they're blue. I probably got it from my mother but they look out of place on me, and I can still see just fine with hair over them anyway. I don't remember what I told her (though I'm sure it wasn't the truth), or why I let her walk with me, since I was going back to my room to get my stuff and leave. I'm sick of Alexandria, I'm sick of being here and I should go but now I can't go, now I don't want to go.  
She followed me there, we started talking, something stupid about wanting to get to know me better, that I'm her friend and she wants to know the real me. But I am the real me, I'm not holding back some nice guy inside, not going to suddenly be Zidane or fuckin' Fratley if she just says something right. She better know that, maybe she does, maybe she doesn't, do I even know that?  
She asked me all these questions, and she was happy, she looked like she wasn't even thinking about him at all, maybe trying to distract herself by messing with me. She talked about growing up and being a Dragon Knight, which I guess was a hard thing for her to do being a girl and she got a lot of shit for it from everyone else. She learned not to let things get to her, learned to be very formal there, she learned to be a tough bitch and yet there's this part of her that crumbles when anyone looks at her the wrong way. I let her say her piece, no skin off my nose I guess, fine, fine, I'll be your counselor, talk away, no different than me writing in this stupid book to some unknown person in the future.  
But after that she wanted me to talk, but I didn't want to say anything so I didn't, and she just looked at me as I was sitting there on the bed edge, and then she sat behind me and real slowly put those little hands on my shoulders. I truly think she was scared of me getting pissed at first, snapping at her or lashing out, and she was right to be, 'cause I would have, I know it, but when she did that I couldn't move or say anything. It's like she cast Stop on me 'cause I stopped, right there.   
She started rubbing my shoulders and my mind was saying 'get away' but I didn't say anything, and she said that I walked hunched over so bad and I should relax, a whole bunch of stuff I didn't really hear because I was trying so hard to tell her to leave me the hell alone and I couldn't say it, like my throat was just locked up. She made me lay on my stomach on the bed so she could reach better and I just went and did it, why did I do that? Every part of me was yelling that she could just jab a knife into the back of my skull, that I was just so defenseless like that but maybe I trust her? It makes sense; why would she try to kill me now anyway? Maybe I trusted her even though I didn't, you know?   
Anyway, she asked why I'm always hunched over and also about my childhood but I really couldn't tell her about either of them, those being connected and all. I didn't have the heart to tell her that she could rub all she wanted and I'd never straighten out, no matter how nice it felt or how much I wanted it to be true. I'm stuck this way since Caleb kept me in a cage for so many years, that he didn't think to get a bigger one as I kept growing, that I had to sit there with my head nearly between my knees to fit in there before I was able to get out of there for good. Did she want to hear the way I cried, unaware of my own existence, my own humanity, only feeling the pain and wanting it to make it stop? How could I tell her that and then be able to take the look of pity on her face? Oh, what the fuck am I saying? 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Okay, I'm calm now, I'm going to continue because I guess it needs continuing. Paper makes a very satisfying noise when it's ripped but I'm sure you knew that. Anyway, I have more problems now so I don't need to drag up the past anymore, even though crap like that is part of me and I guess it has a place in a book about me too. It happened and I said I wouldn't cross it out.  
Something else happened too, and I'm going to write it down despite the fact that my brain is sending off warning signals that I shouldn't. The thing just should vanish itself from existence but it's also the real reason why I am so confused right now. You see, I don't remember what made it start but Freya decided to show me her Burmecian dancing, and all I'm going to say is that after a while of watching her dance around in that little shirt I made sure to stay laying on my stomach on the bed. I was damn uncomfortable, and I'm not talking about my belt buckle pinching my gut either. I'm not going to embarrass myself by intricately describing it but you probably know what I mean. In fact, if you're a guy you probably know exactly what I mean, and if you're a girl you probably know exactly how to make it happen.   
Are you done laughing at me now? Fine. So she's a demi-human I don't know if you'd call her pretty, in the conventional sense of the word. She's Freya, that's all I can really say about her. But when she looks back over her shoulder at you with eyes like emeralds and her white hair swinging around her face, it doesn't matter that she isn't human, that those tiny hands of hers only have four fingers, that she has a tail with a little damn ribbon tied on it. When she smiles and makes you feel like you're the only person in the world and that you matter, that your life means something because it means something to her - it doesn't matter that she's a Burmecian. It just doesn't. I know there are quite a few people who might not understand this, who might think it unnatural, dirty fine, whatever. I sure as hell won't be able to change your mind. You can sit on it and rotate for all I care. Besides, it's not like I'm human myself, when you get down to it. Don't ask me why I'm trying to rationalize this anyway, since it's all a big waste of time. I've gone and ruined anything that might have happened between us.  
'Between us', fuck, listen to me talking like I know what I'm saying. Freya was trying to be a friend or something and I start acting like a fool. How could she let me lose control like that? Didn't she know what she was doing would affect me like that?   
She had her hands on my shoulders again, and then she was leaning down to say something to me, her hair falling into my vision like this silk curtain, and I just lost it I guess, flipped over and pinned her down before either one of us knew what was happening.  
I have to be imagining it, wishful thinking or something clouding the way I remember this, but she didn't seem scared or angry, or anything other than surprised a little. I think we just kind of laid there staring at each other, and then she reached up and kind of brushed the hair away from my eyes. She was startled when she saw them, like most people, and gasped, and when I heard that, I dunno, it just kinda set off something in me, this thought that I didn't want it to happen again, that if I let myself hurt Freya I would kill myself. So I just ran away, even when I heard her call my name I didn't stop, I just got out of there and hung around town for a while. When I did go back I made sure to avoid her or any of the others she might have told. I ought to be on my way to Treno now but I'm staying holed up in my room until I can force myself to actually go.  
Stupid, I know, cowardly, dumb, it's all the clichés you've ever heard. Shout at the book, 'you know you love her, don't run off and ruin it with that hackneyed 'I'm afraid I'll hurt her' thing!' Go ahead, it won't change the fact that I did in fact do it, have in fact hurt someone before, and I'm not just talking about some broken heart. Besides, I don't know if I love her, I don't know anything, I don't understand anything.  
I really need to leave Alexandria now, but, for some reason, I don't want to. But I don't want to see her either and try to explain what happened, or apologize, or anything like that. Maybe I just want to keep that one moment, when I knew I meant something, safe with me here without having to talk to her, and risk having her take it back. 


	8. Entry Eight

"Athanasia" Entry Eight

Entry Eight 

--You knew it. I know you did do. In fact, I'd bet my whole bounty, assuming I had it, that you knew I'd get bored and start scratching away in this book again. Yeah, I'm still hiding out in my room here, just waiting. I know, I know. Well, foolish or not I'm going to stay here until Freya leaves to go back where she belongs. And I'm not going to write any more about her. That means more talking about myself and telling you things I couldn't tell her when she asked. So get ready. Gotta look back and see what the last thing I said was.  
Okay, so I guess from everything else I've said before about me being Caleb's property, it seems like I would have never stopped being a mindless animal, never turned into what I am now, which I'm sure isn't perfect but is better than being that. And I probably wouldn't have, if it had just been up to me alone. But actually I owe myself to one person, since most everything I know I got from him.  
See, Caleb wasn't always a noble but a merchant's son, and before he came into money he was a normal kid like you can find anywhere, like all kids cruel and kind both unwittingly, and when he was a boy he had a best friend named Sust. When they grew up they went their separate ways and while Caleb got rich Sust became a monk and learned to fight and meditate and all that stuff real monks learn. I was about nine or ten, as far as I can guess, when Sust came back to Treno and visited his friend.  
I can't sit here and tell you exactly when I realized that I had thoughts, control - humanity. It's not as though someone just flipped some damn switch and all the lights went on upstairs. It must have happened slowly, and I don't know how he did it. I do remember, though, looking at my hand, moving my fingers, staring at them as I moved them and thinking 'this is me and I am here'. And when that happened, Sust was there. Somehow he must have come across me in my cage while over at Caleb's and took it upon himself to wake me up, you might say. He's the one who gave me my name; I don't even remember what Caleb called me, probably just variations on 'him'.   
He left a lot but always came back to teach me something new, first speaking and then writing and reading. It took me a long time to learn but then again I had a lot of time to practice that stuff, since I was mostly locked up unless Caleb decided he wanted to parade me around or make me fight someone stupid enough to bet that he could beat me. And it got so that I didn't want to do that anymore, when I could feel people's stares in my skin and feel ashamed, embarrassed, angry that the fucker could do this to me, that I could let him do that to me.  
As you might expect, Caleb was none too happy that his beast had become an actual person who fought against his imprisonment and was now too much of a rebel to lead around on a chain. He made a deal with Sust which did make me a slave (rather than a dog), but at least it let me move around freely. The cage was gone, but too late, the damage had already been done. I could go around his mansion, though his wife hated that and was probably scared of me, and eventually I was trusted enough to go into town on errands. I didn't even think of running away - where would I go? Besides, if I went away I knew Sust might not be able to find me again, and at that moment in time he was the only thing that mattered to me.  
The last thing he taught me over those years was to fight with control, without that animal rage, like a monk does with his hands and body as his weapon though I did pick up the claws later on. He taught me ways to use my ki, my life force, as a way to heal and hurt my enemies with sheer force of mind. This self-control is, well, my most prized possession I guess you could say. There's no way in hell that I'm ever going to go back to what I was, even for a moment, though saying that's really just wishing it was true. There have been times it's happened and I hate myself all the more after each one.  
And the more I learned, the more I started to hate Caleb. But Sust made me promise not to attack him, so I didn't. Since I couldn't kill him I just refused to listen to his orders. I'm not going to talk about how he punished me for that, some things I just don't want to go into, even with a stranger like you. Naturally none of it was very pretty. But this more than anything taught me that no matter what, I had to win. Losing meant worse than death, even against the bullies that lived in Treno and all they wanted was to strut around after knocking you down. You let them walk over you even once and they will keep doing it, and I wasn't going to let anyone else do it even though Caleb did. I couldn't help that but I could make sure no one else messed with me, that no one else was good enough to mess with me. With Caleb it was just a battle of wills I guess, since I'd promised not to fight him for real.  
This all got Caleb real mad, I guess he felt that Sust had just stolen his property right out from under him since I was no longer his pet half-breed monster and could pretty much leave whenever I wanted to. I'm sure other nobles laughed at him for this, that he owned me but not for real. All that gil wasted, and all that. I guess I can understand that but I can't ever forgive him for what he did about it.  
So one day when I went to the house where Sust stayed when he was in town, he wasn't there. I thought he'd gone on one of his trips around the Mist Continent and I waited and waited, but a month passed and he never showed. I knew right away something was wrong because he hadn't said goodbye. He turned up finally bobbing in the canal, his face purple and his eyes open wide, bulging, very dead. He'd been dead that whole month, and the sucker-plants that eat flesh, that live under some of the bridges in Treno, especially where the common people live, had held him under for that whole time and ate away at him. I like to think that he was dead before the sucker-plants got to him; it's the only thing I can do, as if thinking it made makes it so.  
Some city guards hauled his body from the water, it looks so peaceful in the lights that are always lit since it's always so dark, and they laid him on the stones as all these people gathered around to gawk. You could see the water pooling around him, and there were stars in it. I stood and watched too, got as close as I dared, and before a moment was over I knew what to do.  
I dunno why I did it, it's not as if he could have heard me, but before I left I told him I loved him. He's the only person I've ever said that to. No one's ever said it to me.  
Of course I knew who had Sust killed, and you do too. So did everyone who knew about the situation and they all waited to see what would happen, what I would do. That very minute I went straight back to Caleb and challenged the little shit, as you might have guessed, since I didn't have anyone to hold me to my promise anymore. He was a noble, not a fighter, so he didn't have much of a chance. I splattered his blood all around his office and it was the one thing I've done I regret the least in all my life. I still keep his last name, you know, as my own, kind of like a trophy. I've never bought into things some criminals do, like some guy I knew who kept a bit of hair from each person he killed. But I've got his last name now, Coral, and taking it was the best thing I could think of, the most fitting.   
Of course everyone knew I'd killed him, when they found out about it, but either they were afraid to try and arrest me or they just hadn't liked Caleb enough to bother with charges. Nobles, who knows. Sure didn't stop them from putting that bounty on me years later for 'stealing' from the Auction House, but that was probably a whole different generation of the bastards in charge too.  
Anyhow, I went out on my own after that but came back to Treno every once in a while, mostly before I even knew I was going there just like it is for me now. I mostly ended up wandering around looking for fights, until I met Zidane, and later joining up with him. And so there you have it. What a sad sack of shit I am, hm? Well, I'm not going to apologize for anything - what happened is what happened. I'll let you think of it what you will, as if I could stop you anyway.  
So, now what? I've done what I said I'd do and wrote about myself. There's nothing left to say that the history books won't cover for you. Well, nothing left that I want to tell you. I'm not under any contract to tell you my secrets, after all. So I guess this is it. 


	9. Entry Nine

"Athanasia" Entry Nine

So that Guardian doesn't shrivel. ^^ Thank you so much for your support!

Entry Nine 

--I've gone and done it now. I had this chance just sitting there waiting and I went and killed it. You bet your ass this has to do with Freya, and while I'm still sort of calm I'm going to explain it here. Fuck it, now that she knows it'll get out to everyone, and I might as well include it here so that you don't get the impression that I'm a decent kind of person or anything. At least it's a chance to give my side of it, not that I'm trying to defend what I did. I'm not that kind of crazy, not that it means anything.  
I don't know if she fell on her head or what, but for some reason Freya decided to go find me, heard I was still in town because of course someone like me doesn't exactly blend in, you know. I went and left the castle but was taking my sweet time like an idiot in getting out of town, mainly because I've been most everywhere already and wasn't too thrilled about seeing it all again.  
Okay, who am I kidding? I'm lying, I'm lying, I didn't want to leave because, I don't know, I guess I really did still want to talk to her, I wanted her to know I wasn't just some coward who ran off because our faces were, like, this close, you know, and because she gasped when she saw my eyes?  
And well, she did come to find me because she thought I ran off because I thought she was ugly, that I didn't want to roll on the bed with a demi-human, that I was feeling sick for liking her and she's got a tail. So she's telling me all this, kinda going around and around the subject till she gets there, she's actually got these tears in her eyes at implying that I'd have wanted her in the first place, and here I'm thinking oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. I really didn't want her to look like that at me, and she isn't the one who needs to apologize, and so - I told her.   
I told her what I wanted never to tell anyone, just to make her feel better than me, to make her be the right one and not me. And when she heard it she just got, I don't know, stunned, and those eyes went wide and I saw fear there, maybe not so much, and then I knew I just could never see her again and I left. I left with the memory of her scared of me, she's never scared of anything, you don't hear her say so much as 'ow' on the battlefield and when I went away all I left of me was that, being scared, and her eyes saying 'I'm hurt' even though she never says that. I hurt her and I hurt her and I'm not ever seeing her again, is that a good enough punishment? I just made a mistake! I told her about when I was younger, on my own after Caleb died I killed Caleb and it was really the first time I was feeling life for myself, and I didn't know what I was doing, and I followed around all these brigands and I know now that they were just treating me like a pet, just like Caleb, only I thought they were friends because I was damn naïve even being brought up the way I was.  
So these 'friends' thought it would be funny to set me up with some whore in Lindblum once, it was as far as I ever traveled then and I was just so in awe of everything but trying to look tough so no one would try to bother me, and I didn't even know what was going on. They gave her some gil to kiss me and she was adventurous and did it and they all laughed while I just wondered what was going on. They gave her more money to do more stuff and then take me back to her room and I guess I was better than starving so she took it, and everything that happened, it was a blur. But I somehow I lost it, something that happened made me go back to that way I was, without a mind, animal and without anything, I just hurt her and lost it and didn't know anything, but I hurt her like that and oh those brigands laughed at me and at her, said she deserved it taking their money for that.  
I didn't know, I just - well I told her! I told her that was why I ran away and now I can't ever see her again, I left her with pain and I can't ever see her again can't ever come back again-* 


	10. Entry Ten

"Athanasia" Entry Ten

Entry Ten 

--Okay, look, I'm only writing this down because Zidane told me to. He caught up with me on the road, actually got ahead of me and was waiting for me all sitting on a boulder acting casual, the asshole. Being 'dead' sure didn't do anything to help his smarts, 'cause he didn't know better than to argue with me and try to get me to go back. And I know you're reading this over my shoulder, thief-boy. Go away.  
I know how bad I fucked things up with Freya, and I don't need him to tell me about them. I'm sorry, but you just don't look at someone the same way after they've told you about the horrible things they've done, and I'm not going to give her a chance to look at me with fear or disgust, no matter how much Zidane begs.  
Well, I let him read it. This, yeah, what you've got in your hands now, rather than say out loud again what I'm so afraid of. He's trying to give me advice even though none of it will work, none of this is as simple as to be fixed the way he fixes things, with a grin and a gleam in his eye and besides, I am the wrong one, the bad one here and this is the best thing to do. I told him to shut up while I'm writing but dammit, he doesn't listen very well.  
Don't get me wrong, I don't like running away. But I can't just be going around looking for fights anymore, and I've already feel like I've gone and slashed her through the chest. The tears in her eyes was the javelin in me so we're both dead, both lost, and I'm better than to stay and kick someone who's down. It's enough to whip myself over it, wonder why I couldn't have come up with a safe little lie and at least still have a friend left. Dunno how it happened, but it's grown to be real hard for me to lie, especially to Freya.  
Zidane thinks there's a way to fix things, or at least explain everything, but I'm not so sure. It would still mean I wouldn't have to go back to Alexandria, at least, since he would do it for me. I have to think it over, and I'm going to take my time. What does he know? Let him sit out here and bake in the sun and wait for me, it's the least he deserves. I could be halfway to Treno by now. 

All right, all right, I've been saying all along that I'm writing this for whoever might happen to find it in the future. But, now I've thought it over and I'm going to take Zidane's advice, even though it's sure to embarrass me and maybe ruin things even more. But what can I do? Nothing, that's what, but this.   
So, Freya, I guess this is for you. Understand me more, hate me more, it's all up to you now. I can't apologize for anything in here, can only say that it's the truth as I know it. My book it is yours now because I'm not going back for it. Like I said at the beginning, do what you want with it now, it's all there is of me - my athanasia, my own piece of immortality all bound up here. 'Big words' and all.  
At least you'll know who it was who fell in love with you. 


	11. Addendum

"Athanasia" Addendum

Addendum 

--I have been persuaded not to leave things here and torture you poor future souls with ambiguity, and to finish off my book by telling you the outcome of Zidane's advice. So, you really want to know what happened after he took this back to the castle for Freya to read? Actually, the whole thing smacks of a ten-gil paperback, same as all the ones about Zidane and the queen. I won't blame you for stopping here and keeping your sense of drama intact.  
All right, I give up. What happened was, I went on to Treno, not expecting very much. Why is it that I always go here when I have nowhere in particular to go? There are many, many better places around the world to end up in.  
But, like it or not, Treno is where I was, just hanging around and stuff. Stopped into the inn, and since I helped save the world I guess I'm not really 'wanted' anymore and so the innkeeper, that grouchy old bastard, gave me my old poster he's had hanging in the corner for so long. I don't know what he thought I might want with it, but I took it rather than pitch a fit, and then I went down to the nearest bridge to drop the damn thing in.  
Now, okay, this is where it gets melodramatic. You don't live in a place like Treno that's built on water without learning to swim. You just learn, or else, well, you won't be living there any longer, right? So when I heard this splash I didn't think one damn thing of it. There're always people jumping off the bridges, whether it's for a dip or maybe you're just out of money and out of luck, goodbye.  
So, yeah, I didn't care. Dropped the paper in and turned to go find something else to do, a bar to sit in for a while maybe, but then I hear this splashing and some voice, and a girl screaming her head off. Now who knows why, but some kid's in the water, and he's being dragged under by the sucker-plants, since nobody really gives a damn about clearing them outta there around the bad side of town. Cleans out the trash, you know.  
This kid's gonna be drowned and eaten, maybe not in that order, and I'm standing there. Now, maybe once I would have just walked off and figured that it's just not my problem. But that would have been before Zidane screwed me up, better or worse, and so I went in after him.  
I'm willing to bet you've never messed with a sucker-plant before. I don't know if they're really all plant or what, maybe something like a plant-monster that eats meat. But they've got these little feeler things on tentacles that wrap around you and keep you from being able to move too good. It had that kid wrapped up pretty good, and it was real dark under there, but I had the claws so I just started tearing away, mucking up the water even more with its sap or blood or whatever.  
When the little feeler things start getting at you, it doesn't hurt too bad, at least at first, kinda like Eiko pinching you when she doesn't get her way. But they go for the same spots over and over again, pinch pinch pinch, and then it really starts to hurt. And I had to get close to it to get the kid out, and some of those vine whatevers got around my arm and latched on, and they started that pinching that was really like - nibbling, until they got to some blood and then it felt like hell.  
I think the kid was passed out by then, couldn't hold his breath that long, and I wasn't feeling too good either, kinda hacking away blindly and trying my best to kill it or at least make it let us go, and then it got tighter and tighter and I just couldn't breathe, and the only thing I could think by then was this was what Sust felt, because I just know they tied him up and threw him to the plants, and they just sucked away his life until he was dead, eaten up by the little teeth and here I was going to have the same thing happen to me because I was so fucking stupid as to help some damn kid, because I thought that if I didn't - well, that's just not who I am anymore.  
That sentence was much too long. I'll never make a good paperback fiction writer. For shame.  
Anyway, yes, it was getting dark and I was thinking that was it, I mean, even after offing Kuja and that whatever-thing who had the mind-numbing chorus of screams in his amphitheater at the end of the world - whoever the fuck he was - after that, and Amarant Coral can't fight off one damn plant by himself. Well, no, I can't, not with it sucking my life away bit by bit - and it was underwater, give me a break.  
But then there was this flash of light and some streams of color and then I felt myself going upward, kinda slow but maybe I was seeing it wrong. Just up and up till finally I hit the surface and could breathe again, which was real nice. Some other people helped get me and the kid up on the bridge, since Freya couldn't really push us both up there without the water to help carry us; she's such a little thing after all and she knows it too even though she makes a face when you say it.  
Oh, yeah, it was Freya who saved us. I guess after she read my book she decided to come find me and there were all these people around talking and I couldn't really hear her voice when she explained it, I just didn't want to hear anything. I don't know, I was just shocked that she was even there, I mean after what I did and everything. I could only look at her and watch her speak even though I didn't really hear what she was saying.   
But maybe my writing makes me sound like some okay guy because it made her think that anyway. And since she comes to find me and has to save me because I was saving some kid, well, that just makes the whole thing complete, I'm so completely redeemed and Not So Bad. You've got another Canary play right here. It makes me sick.  
So I'm sitting there wet and I finally get the mind back to ask her if she's really going to forgive me for what I did, and I suppose that was what she was talking about because she gave me this huge whack upside the head which I didn't appreciate because I'd just almost drowned.   
Everyone was staring around at us and someone was thanking me and I don't know, I just wanted it all to go away - except Freya of course because I didn't think that I would have seen her again and suddenly there she was, so she shouldn't have to go away. But everyone else had to and I told them to and they did, because I was pissed off and I don't look like the kind of person you want to be around when they're pissed off, especially when I'm bleeding and wet. So they all left.  
Except Freya. And since it's quiet now and everything you say is suddenly really loud and in front of you, we're quiet too, and I realize that she's put her coat around my shoulders and it looks all ridiculous and is too small and doesn't help me one bit getting dry, but I leave it there. And we're just looking at each other in a pool of water on a Treno bridge, and she's just everything all at once, you know, she's not just many parts of one thing like most people, she's many parts of many things and that maybe I don't see them all, maybe the stuff I like isn't the most of her. And it turns out that was what she was thinking about me, that she was wondering if I was really what she saw, until she read this book. And the book didn't change her mind, just made it up for her I think.  
Now, I can't help but think that's kind of unfair, that she can know the parts of me that senses can't sense and I know only what I can see of her. But Maybe she'll give in one of these days and make her own book, but I've never known her to give up an advantage once she has one either. I'll just have to wait and see, and Zidane can go spit into the wind if he thinks I'm going to give him one word of thanks for his 'help'. Because I didn't need it, see.  
Okay, well, that's about it. I really am finished with this now, since the rest of what happened isn't interesting at all. So I'm not going to bother you with the way she gently brushed my hair from my face, looking straight into my eyes. I won't describe the warmth of her arms around my neck, the way her hair tickled my cheek as she leaned in close, or the taste of her lips pressed against mine.  
After all, some things should remain private. 

--Amarant Coral  
7/18 


End file.
